Mosaic

Mosaic, originally developed by the National Center for SuperComputing Applications, was one of the first web "browsers" out there. It was originally developed for Windows, Macintosh, and the X-Windows system. Even though it was started in 1991, the developers canned the project in 1995 (with far superior commercial browsers out on the market, they completed their mission to make the web viewable. It is now open-source for people to view and to modify (if you qualify).

Microsoft licensed a customizable version of Mosaic from Spyglass, and marketed it as Internet Explorer. As part of their marketing strategy in the infamous browser wars, they decided to dump the browser on the market for free (you could actually purchase web browsers back then). Now Microsoft was supposed to pay Spyglass a fee on a per-copy-distributed basis, which would mean that MS would actually be paying for people to use their (now free) browser. But according to a Spyglass executive, MS failed to actually honor the agreement, by not actually bothering to pay.

Spyglass was vocal about suing Microsoft-- for about a week. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the story dropped. But I'm sure that there was not a pay-off-- I mean settlement-- involved.